Social Adaptation During Periods Of State Collapse

Researchers will investigate how communities respond to state collapse and climate change, two processes that have set global human populations into motion for generations. Archaeology is well suited to address this question because it investigates how humans interact innovatively with their environments through food production and other cultural practices over many generations.

Communities that have migrated or been displaced face many challenges, among them food insecurity, limited economic opportunities, and a loss of identity. This project focuses on herding communities to understand how particular economic and social strategies can differentially influence the outcome and experience of migrants. Agropastoralists benefit from a mobile food base that enables them to move between different environments and maintain broad social networks.

Often considered marginal to urbanized state societies, herders find themselves at an advantage when the pressures of political conflict and persistent drought force communities to migrate in search of resources. How did displaced agropastoralists leverage their expansive knowledge and resources in their daily routine while also maintaining stewardship of their cultural traditions and memories away from home?

How did local and foreign resources and practices shape agropastoral cuisine, production, and ritual in diaspora? The team researchers will provide educational and training opportunities for students with emphasis on scientific field and laboratory methods in archaeology. The project also includes educational outreach and professionalization of local community members to contribute to local awareness of heritage and to aid conservation of archaeological sites in the region.

The research team will examine how highland-descendant herders modified their subsistence strategies, mobility patterns, and ritual activities to adapt economically and socially to new environments, climate change, and sociopolitical reorganization. The research will be conducted amidst diverse ecological zones that offered pastoralists access to seasonally complementary resources in an otherwise marginal environment.

A team of archaeologists, paleoethnobotanists, and zooarchaeologists will assess what resources were produced or acquired at the site. The team will excavate a residential compound and adjacent cemetery area to illustrate how resources contributed to daily and ritual practices. The application of a suite of isotopic scientific analyses will allow the researchers to source different materials from the site and reconstruct the spatial and temporal scope of mobility and exchange.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.